Community Public Health and Wellbeing Research Associate

HEIF

The Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF) supports knowledge exchange between higher education providers and the wider world that benefits society and the economy.

Further information is available at: https://www.ukri.org/what-we-do/browse-our-areas-of-investment-and-support/higher-education-innovation-fund/

THE PROJECT 

We are seeking an individual to lead a high-impact HEIF-funded research project “Making It Count: A Community-Based Public Health Outcomes Toolkit for Essex” in collaboration with Essex County Council (ECC) Wellbeing, Public Health and Communities team. This role will focus on co-producing, piloting, and embedding a flexible evaluation toolkit designed to capture “soft” outcomes (e.g. emotional wellbeing, empowerment, social connectedness) in community-based public health and wellbeing interventions. You will play a central role in coordinating research activities, engaging stakeholders across the public and voluntary sectors, and driving forward evaluation innovation at the intersection of public health, social policy, and community development.

DUTIES OF THE POST

• Leading the day-to-day coordination of the HEIF-funded project, in collaboration with academic supervisors and ECC Wellbeing, Public Health and Communities staff
• Conducting a stakeholder-led review of current data collection and evaluation practices across ECC-funded community public health and wellbeing programmes
• Designing and implementing qualitative and participatory research activities (e.g. interviews, focus groups, participatory mapping) with service users, VCSE partners, and commissioners
• Working effectively with a diverse range of stakeholder groups and balancing their priorities while ensuring delivery of key project milestones
• Developing and embedding mixed-method evaluation approaches, grounded in relevant theoretical frameworks (e.g. Theory of Change, realist or systems evaluation), to assess community health and wellbeing outcomes and service impact
• Identifying trends and outcome themes through engagement with anonymised service data, where appropriate, to inform refinement of indicators or outcome domains
• Co-developing a context-sensitive, equity-informed evaluation toolkit to support the measurement of “soft” outcomes in community-based public health interventions
• Piloting the toolkit in selected community settings and analysing feedback to support its refinement
• Designing supporting tools for data collection, analysis, and reporting in collaboration with local authority and VCSE partners; this may include user-friendly templates, feedback mechanisms, and outcome tracking frameworks
• Facilitating workshops and training sessions with public and third-sector partners to support evaluation capacity-building
• Establishing and supporting a Community of Practice (CoP) to promote peer learning, shared ownership, and long-term toolkit sustainability
• Co-developing a publication and dissemination plan with the academic team and ECC Wellbeing, Public Health and Communities team, and contributing to academic publications and conference presentations related to the project’s findings, methodology, and theoretical contribution
• Contributing to the preparation of policy briefs, practitioner-facing resources, and other applied outputs for wider dissemination
• Supporting ethical research governance, including managing ethics applications, risk assessments, and data protection procedures

 A full list of applicant requirements can be found in the job pack on our University vacancies page.

LOCATION

This post will be based jointly at the University of Essex (School of Health and Social Care) & Essex County Council (Public Health team), with opportunities for hybrid & flexible working arrangements, including online/remote work where appropriate.

Please use the 'Apply' button to read further information about this role including the full job description & person specification which outlines the full duties, skills, qualifications & experience needed for this role. You will also find details of how to make your application here.

Our website http://www.essex.ac.uk contains more information about the University of Essex. If you have a disability & would like information in a different format, please email resourcing@essex.ac.uk.

Advert information